Looking at the expanses of rock, I felt my crack addiction rise to the potential pleasures of the upcoming hours. The cracks are spread out before me like a fan of cards.

When clueless, I take the advice of friends, and so I take a closer look at the crack my partner describes as ‘5.7 with beautiful solid jams all the way up.’

“I’ve not steered you wrong yet...” I feel this comment is ominous in some way, but he’s right, even if the feeling in the middle of my head doesn’t agree.

Begrudgingly acknowledging the truth of his statement, I look at the wide, flaring crack bottomless crack. Bolstered by the fact I could see to the top of the climb, I’d decided that this was the way up. The pro lent itself towards opportunities to be creative and I was in the mood to test my newbie placing skills.

Armed with a #4 cam, the largest my small hands have ever clenched around, and the promise of almost unbelievably positive features littering the face, I hauled my over- geared self into a crack wide enough to swallow my knees and shoulders .

Having made it through the mind-daunting wide section, I continue upward following tight hands and beautiful flakes with ephemeral confidence...and reality hits. I find myself in a crack that will only take fingers and nuts with a face full of features too smooth to spark any kind of confidence. I flail the nut set at the crack in hopes the right size will somehow magically place itself perfectly.

“um.. narrow side in first for offsets...” I hear from the ground. OFFSETS! How the FUDGE do I place OFFSETS!?!?!? DAMN! I can barely see the shape of each nut as my mind revs into the next gear towards panic.

A nut somehow slides in and tide of panic momentarily eases...until I look up and see nothing to get me out. I have a Leader Moment, when I know there is NO WAY I can be lowered off that nut. I’m on the sharp end with no more slings, all the wrong size cams, a set of fussy nuts, and nowhere to go but up. The prussic and rap rings I keep on my harness as ‘emergency safety gear’ are laughably useless. My sweaty hand clasps the wire of that desperate nut. I am afraid to let go, afraid to clip it with my last loner biner, afraid of the certainty that the nut will lift out of the crack as soon as I move above it, afraid of the tenuous moves that are above me.

I top out on that pitch amazed that my mind is in one piece and I’m able to think about setting an anchor with only the rope and 2 racking biners that are all I have left. Breaking my mind and finding some of the residual strength remains unbelievable.

on a less braggy note:Did you really not know what to do with offsets, or was that just a temporary blackout? Also, how do you manage to start the pitch overgeared, yet even before the end you run out of stuff? What did you belay off?

Nevertheless, nice story, i guess all of us have been in a somewhat similar situation once (or twice, or thrice, or too often to count…)

Looking at the expanses of rock, I felt my crack addiction rise to the potential pleasures of the upcoming hours. The cracks are spread out before me like a fan of cards.

When clueless, I take the advice of friends, and so I take a closer look at the crack my partner describes as ‘5.7 with beautiful solid jams all the way up.’

“I’ve not steered you wrong yet...” I feel this comment is ominous in some way, but he’s right, even if the feeling in the middle of my head doesn’t agree.

Begrudgingly acknowledging the truth of his statement, I look at the wide, flaring crack bottomless crack. Bolstered by the fact I could see to the top of the climb, I’d decided that this was the way up. The pro lent itself towards opportunities to be creative and I was in the mood to test my newbie placing skills.

Armed with a #4 cam, the largest my small hands have ever clenched around, and the promise of almost unbelievably positive features littering the face, I hauled my over- geared self into a crack wide enough to swallow my knees and shoulders .

Having made it through the mind-daunting wide section, I continue upward following tight hands and beautiful flakes with ephemeral confidence...and reality hits. I find myself in a crack that will only take fingers and nuts with a face full of features too smooth to spark any kind of confidence. I flail the nut set at the crack in hopes the right size will somehow magically place itself perfectly.

“um.. narrow side in first for offsets...” I hear from the ground. OFFSETS! How the FUDGE do I place OFFSETS!?!?!? DAMN! I can barely see the shape of each nut as my mind revs into the next gear towards panic.

A nut somehow slides in and tide of panic momentarily eases...until I look up and see nothing to get me out. I have a Leader Moment, when I know there is NO WAY I can be lowered off that nut. I’m on the sharp end with no more slings, all the wrong size cams, a set of fussy nuts, and nowhere to go but up. The prussic and rap rings I keep on my harness as ‘emergency safety gear’ are laughably useless. My sweaty hand clasps the wire of that desperate nut. I am afraid to let go, afraid to clip it with my last loner biner, afraid of the certainty that the nut will lift out of the crack as soon as I move above it, afraid of the tenuous moves that are above me.

I top out on that pitch amazed that my mind is in one piece and I’m able to think about setting an anchor with only the rope and 2 racking biners that are all I have left. Breaking my mind and finding some of the residual strength remains unbelievable.

LS Thanks for sharing your adventure. It is times like the one that you experienced that make it most memorable. After all if there was no adrenalin rush there would be no thrill factor. In the end you kept it all together and felt the big rush one gets when they top out after a soul searching moment.

Nice TR. Fun to read, not too long and boring, and the pictures definitely add to it.

I am trying to imagine a scenario where you would use those rappel rings on a single pitch route. Nope. Can't think of one.

Some words of advice: Don't rack gear on your harness that you don't know how to use. Bring more draws. I will often pare down my gear and bring more draws than I think I will need. Don't draw your own confidence (or lack of it) from what other people say. Make your own observations and draw your own conclusions from it.

Thanks again for reading and commenting. Strangely enough, I get off on knowing I am instigating a few chuckles Out There.

So

You're right, at '5.7' running it out (which I've done before, being a dangerous n00b climber) is a viable option. After talking to my partner, who'd 'never steered me wrong', I realized I'd followed an alternate route up, taking me out of familiar 5.7 territory. In fact, he'd mentioned it in the moments I veered off course, but I didn't hear him, probably because I had my head up a crack!

Thus, I had sand-bagged myself, which tells me my route-finding skills are crap and I need more practice.

Regarding Offset nuts...I didn't know about putting in the narrow side first, merely text book pictures and the handful (of varying quality) I've cleaned. I know a bad placement and I've played with them in the past, only successfully placed one...once. 5.7 terrain, seemed the ideal situation to work on my offset nut skillz...HAHAHA. Joke's on me!

In regards to being over-geared, I'm a n00b leader, and habitually err on the side of too much. I actually brought an 'extra' cam (trusty green .75) and two additional trad draws (been working on adding more draws to my standard 'kit') as 'personal gear'. Thank goodness! On this occasion, I topped out with the rest of the nuts and one small cam. I set up the anchor off a tree with the rope, and secured myself with racking biners scavenged from the nut set and cam. I will be focusing on have the Right Gear. And remember that it's ok to haul up a bunch of stuff on unknown territory and just deal with the weight. Being well armed lends itself well to success.

Mini-epics like this either make you into a trad climber...or convince you to take up golf.

At least you got to the top of your route. Many of my favorite experiences involve minor or major epic failures and hair-raising retreats. In fact, I just wrote an account of one on Super Topo. I won't cross post, but here is a link for anyone who might need to replenish the palm sweat induced by LS here.

Mini-epics like this either make you into a trad climber...or convince you to take up golf.

At least you got to the top of your route. Many of my favorite experiences involve minor or major epic failures and hair-raising retreats. In fact, I just wrote an account of one on Super Topo. I won't cross post, but here is a link for anyone who might need to replenish the palm sweat induced by LS here.